


O Gather Me the Rose

by Rotwang



Category: Good Omens
Genre: Gifts, Ineffable Idiots, M/M, Mutual Pining, They’re both just So Dumb, hashing out their friendship post not-apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 08:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20560925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rotwang/pseuds/Rotwang
Summary: Aziraphale really wasn’t trying to bring it up. Really. It was all behind them and everything was fine now— so why stir the pot?But there’s just something about the way Crowley looks tonight...AKA: Aziraphale and Crowley aren’t very good at talking about things, but sometimes even supernatural embodiments of celestial power can’t avoid the ultimate horror of Being Known.





	O Gather Me the Rose

**Author's Note:**

> Title based on the poem “O Gather Me the Rose” by William Ernest Henley.
> 
> O, gather me the rose, the rose,  
While yet in flower we find it,  
For summer smiles, but summer goes,  
And winter waits behind it!
> 
> For with the dream foregone, foregone,  
The deed forborne for ever,  
The worm, regret, will canker on,  
And time will turn him never.
> 
> So well it were to love, my love,  
And cheat of any laughter  
The death beneath us and above,  
The dark before and after.
> 
> The myrtle and the rose, the rose,  
The sunshine and the swallow,  
The dream that comes, the wish that goes,  
The memories that follow!

It’s a few months after the Not-Apocalypse that Aziraphale even brings it up.

It was so easy, after all the nonsense was done and dusted with their respective employers, to just get back to business as usual. Which of course, was mostly just keeping to themselves and their respective hobbies.

Aziraphale re-read a few of his favorites— appreciating that they weren’t a smoking pile of Hellfire, or burning with Righteous Anger. Honestly he probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the two at this point. Burning to death was likely just as unpleasant whether the flames were red or blue.

Aziraphale did notice he and Crowley went to dinner a few more times than they would have before. And Aziraphale even managed to get him out of bed in time for brunch once. They couldn’t remember which one of them had come up with brunch to begin with, but by all accounts it was a fairly enjoyable morning— whatever Crowley grumbled as he stepped into the morning sun notwithstanding.

So really it makes sense Aziraphale didn’t mention it. It was so nice to just go back to the pleasant, quiet little lives they’d led before all the Antichrist mess— why upset the comfortable balance they’d struck for no reason? It seemed quite sensible to just leave it all behind until something changed.

(Aziraphale tried not to remember that that something was probably going to be another angel or demon showing up to try and kill them again, but that was a great bloody flaming bridge to cross when they got to it.)

It just sort of came out that day. Aziraphale hadn’t intended to bring it up (maybe ever) but there was just something in the way Crowley was standing— a stiffness in him the angel had only seen a few times. He put his finger in the book he was reading and watched his former nemesis where he was squatting over some small shrub.

They were at Crowley’s flat, somewhat unusually. It wasn’t the homiest place, but once Aziraphale had finally convinced Crowley to show him the garden the angel had been more and more keen to spend time there.

Privately he sort of liked that it reminded him of their first meeting, all those years ago in Eden. Aziraphale knew he wasn’t immune to nostalgia— even for something so silly. Their first meeting wasn’t nearly as important as all the other things they’d done together. But still, Aziraphale liked being there with Crowley.

(The plants probably did too. Crowley wasn’t nearly as cruel to them when Aziraphale was around. Or at least, Aziraphale distracted him from his tirades every now and then.)

“Something wrong, dear?” He asked, leaning over the back of the chaise lounge to get a better look at Crowley.

“Mmm.” Crowley said. Not clarifying anything.

The demon stood up, bringing the plant with him and setting it on a small marble table to Aziraphale’s left.

“Someone not up to snuff?” Aziraphale tried to keep his tone light but a couple trees behind him shivered.

“Mmm no...”

Aziraphale craned his head around but he couldn’t see what the problem was, Crowley was in the way.

“Well not like that.” Crowley finally answered Aziraphale’s question. “She’s just dying.” Crowley finally stepped to the side so Aziraphale could see.

The shrub in question was a delicate rose bush. It looked like it was ancient, the wood of the base gnarled and grown up over itself a hundred times. There was one, single, solitary rose blooming at the end of the longest branch, and as Aziraphale watched one soft coral petal detached from the rest and drifted down onto the table.

“Just...?” Aziraphale frowned. Crowley was not usually so calm about his plants losing leaves.

“They all die eventually, Angel.” Crowley trailed one long finger over the twisting branches of the bush. “Got this one from the L'Haÿ-les-Roses in Paris when it first opened in 1900.” Crowley let his hand drop back to the tabletop. “I don’t think this cultivar exists anymore.”

He picked up the fallen petal and rubbed his thumb over it gently, seeming far away.

“Oh.” Aziraphale said. Feeling a bit off.

“Can’t you just...” he made a move towards the plant with his hands, waggling his fingers a bit for effect. The corner of Crowley’s mouth twitched up.

“It’s not a machine. I can’t keep it alive forever. Well—“ Crowley shifted his weight into his more usual stance, all casual grace and hips jutting about.

“Theoretically I could.” Crowley smiled a genuine, if small, smile at Aziraphale.

“But it’d be a bit Frankenstein. Holding it here past the time she was supposed to go. 119 years is much longer than any rose bush has a right to bloom anyway. She was well overdue.”

Aziraphale wasn’t quite sure why his chest felt a bit tight all the sudden. Maybe it was the way Crowley was holding the petal, absently tracing the soft curve of it over and over again.

“Oh.” Aziraphale said again. He felt a bit like a very dull pull toy. Repeating himself over and over again like an idiot. He couldn’t see Crowley’s eyes behind the glasses, but he had the very uncomfortable feeling they might be a bit misty.

Aziraphale had never seen Crowley cry. It wouldn’t have occurred to him the demon even could except... well. There had been that time, in the bar, after he’d been discorporated.

Aziraphale hadn’t been able to see Crowley— and there’d been so much background noise— but the last time he’d even considered Crowley as a being capable of shedding tears was back then. There’d been a strange quality to his voice.

There was an uncomfortable prickle of something in Aziraphale’s stomach. It wasn’t an idea he’d dwelt on. Not that much anyway. Things with the Not-Apocalypse had turned out alright, and then everything had gone back to normal so he hadn’t felt the need. Not that he hadn’t thought about it at all. But it wasn’t as if it’d kept him up at night or anything.

The angel swallowed.

“I’m sorry, Crowley.” There. That was something with a semblance of coherence at least. Aziraphale took an unnecessary breath. The tight feeling in his chest hadn’t eased.

Crowley shrugged, turning away so his back was to Aziraphale. “Just how it goes. Impermanence of life and all that. For things of the Earth, anyway.”

He picked up the pot with the dying rose and put it in the prime spot on the windowsill. Turing it slowly and deliberately until it was just so. Aziraphale watched the demon, letting his book drop all the way onto the cushion beside him.

“Crowley...”

Aziraphale fussed with the edge of the sleek couch he was perched on. He felt silly, bringing all this up now— it was a bad idea. But it was either bring it up and make things awkward, or not bring it up and feel guilty about it forever— so he took another unnecessary breath.

“I know I’m a bit late, but I’m also... I’m also sorry about your friend. The one you lost. “ Aziraphale panicked a little as he said the words. “You know, back when I was disincorporated and I told you about the book.” He wanted to stop speaking.

He didn’t.

“In the bar. Well I think it was a bar. It sounded like one. Could have been a restaurant I suppose. I couldn’t see you really, it was all... shimmery and dull. Um.”

Crowley didn’t turn around, he was completely still. It was an inhuman stillness, the perfect physical control of a snake. Aziraphale silently derided himself for saying anything. It had been much too long and now he’d just ruined their evening.

“Angel...”

“I didn’t say anything before because— well it all got a bit complicated, and then we had to survive our trials, and then everything was so, so fine I didn’t want—“

“Angel.” Crowley’s voice was carefully lacking any distinction.

“Right sorry. We don’t have to talk about it.” Aziraphale said. Praying they weren’t going to talk about it.

Crowley turned around slowly, face still unreadable.

“How many friends d’you think I’ve got, Aziraphale?” Crowley’s tone was neutral, but his body language wasn’t.

“Um...”

Aziraphale was thrown. He didn’t think too much about Crowley’s life beyond their Arrangement. He knew about the plants, and he knew Crowley liked westerns and romcoms; but beyond what they did together Aziraphale didn’t know what Crowley was into.

It hadn’t been safe, before. Aziraphale couldn’t know Crowley’s business and Crowley couldn’t know Ariaphale’s— for the good of the Arrangement. But now... now there wasn’t any reason for them not to know these things.

Aziraphale felt very stupid.

“Well... I don’t know. I suppose other demons may be a bit tetchy these days— but you... like humans. You certainly understand them better than anyone else.” He tried to smile at the demon but he was fairly sure it came out more like a wince.

Crowley was very carefully propped up against one of his plant tables. Only the white knuckles of his hands gripping the edge giving his tension away. He nodded along to Aziraphale’s rambling.

“So, this best friend, that I lost. Just some human then? A fellow demon in arms? Blood brothers since The Fall I somehow never mentioned?” Crowley’s voice was starting to take on an edge Aziraphale hadn’t heard in a while. It sent a tiny spark of annoyance through his gut. Aziraphale hated when Crowley got sarcastic at him.

“Well I don’t know! I don’t know anything about your life when I’m not around. I was just trying to be— “ The angel huffed. “I just wanted to say sorry— properly. We didn’t have time then, but I thought I should...”

Aziraphale turned away from Crowley and the plant room, turning to face forward on the couch again. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”

Crowley’s shoes clacked against the marble floor as he swept around the side of the chaise.

“Once again— how can someone so clever be so stupid?!” He said, holding out his arms and gesturing down at Aziraphale dramatically.

“Well you don’t need to be so rude about it! I didn’t—“

“Angel— it was you!” Crowley dropped one knee onto the couch, leaning over towards Aziraphale so the angel couldn’t turn away from him. “Of course it was you. There’s only ever been you, Aziraphale.”

The fire went out of him as he spoke, and as he finished he fell back onto his leg and let the armrest of the chaise catch him as he deflated.

“Oh.”

Aziraphale was going to discorporate himself if he said that word in that same stupid tone again.

“You really didn’t know?”

There as a different edge to Crowley’s voice now— something closer to how he sounded in the bar that day, or when he was begging Aziraphale to run off with him to Alpha Centauri.

Aziraphale sat stock still— everything but his insides frozen in place, eyes wide.

“I didn’t—“ He finally said, a white hot flush blooming in his chest forced him to turn his head away before it rocketed up into his face. “I didn’t know it was because of me— I didn’t... I didn’t want to assume...”

“6000 years of running to your rescue and you didn’t want to assume—“

“Running to my—? You were not—! I didn’t!” Aziraphale’s voice squeaked as he got more agitated. He huffed for a moment to pull himself together.

“I didn’t want to assume you were like me.” He finally said. “I mean I— even before— before earth, I wasn’t much for socializing. “ Aziraphale clasped and unclasped his hands. They weren’t usually so sweaty.

“Well when Gabriel’s the only option for intelligent conversation I can’t blame you.” Crowley said.

Aziraphale couldn’t help but chuckle— and he was grateful for it. It let him take another steadying breath, and the usual sardonic grin pinned on Crowley’s mouth made him feel better.

“I just... you’re so— “ Aziraphale made another, noncommittal gesture towards Crowley. The demon looked down at himself, and then back up at Aziraphale, eyebrow raised.

“What?”

“You’re just so, you!” Aziraphale sighed. 6000 years of reading and he was still somehow without words.

“What I mean is, you’re fun, and charming, and you understand people. You’re good at getting along with them— or at least pretending to.”

“Thanks...?”

“Crowley you spent 6000 years touted as the most competent demon in Hell based on charisma alone.” He said, taking his turn to grin.

“Ah— and a LOT of lying— don’t forget the lying.” Crowley interjected.

“Yes well. This is all to say, it doesn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility that you’d have other friends. Good ones.” Aziraphale looked down at his hands, still twisted together in his lap.

“I’m not... quite so stupid. I did think maybe you were upset because of my discorporation— but we’d had that row, and you were so keen on Alpha Centauri—“

“Angel—“

Crowley stopped when he realized he’d reached out and taken Aziraphale’s hand.

“Er...”

Crowley seemed to have lost his train of thought. Aziraphale didn’t pull away. He shifted his hand slightly so they were palm to palm.

“I wouldn’t have gone without you, you know.” The demon finally said. Crowley wasn’t looking at Aziraphale. He’d turned his head to the side, but his hand was still curled loosely around his angel’s.

“Because I’m your best friend?” Aziraphale grinned as he said it, teasing.

Crowley looked back at him slowly, hesitating almost. He wasn’t smiling.

“We... are friends, aren’t we Angel?”

“O— oh.”Aziraphale said, dumbly. “Er.” He added, helpfully.

They sat like that for a beat, looking at each other. Both remembering that grey day and their fight on the band stand. It had terrified Aziraphale that Crowley was right. He did like him. He had for a long time. Since Eden, really. And Crowley had known then that he wouldn’t go to Alpha Centauri alone. No matter what the Apocalypse brought.

Aziraphale carefully slotted his fingers through Crowley’s. Lacing their hands together where they lay on the chaise cushion.

“I think... you’re the only friend I’ve ever had, Crowley.”

“Oh.”

Crowley said it so softly it made Aziraphale’s heart clench.

“Err, yeah. I mean— likewise.” The demon cleared his throat and looked away awkwardly. He didn’t move his hand. They sat together like that for a long moment.

“Unless you count that one time in Sparta when I went off my head on wine and pledged my undying loyalty to a vagabond named Alkibiades of Akroinon— we were technically blood brothers by the end of the night, so you’re juuuust—“ Crowley raised his free hand up to his head and then brought it down about an inch. “—just below old Alki on the demonic friendship chart.”

Aziraphale snorted as he laughed. It grew as he finally relaxed, all of the tension bubbling out of him and leaving him feeling quite warm and comfortable. Crowley couldn’t help but chuckle along, infinitely pleased with himself having been the cause of the laughter.

They both leaned back on the chaise, more comfortable now than they’d been in months.

Crowley reached up and pulled off his glasses, setting them gently on the table beside him,artful not to pull his hand away from Aziraphale.

“Speaking of getting off my head on wine...”

The demon looked back at Aziraphale with a smug grin that was probably much softer than he intended it. Aziraphale couldn’t help but beam back at him.

“Oh?”

“I just happened to get ahold of that vintage you were lamenting over last week—don’t ask me how it’d offend your angelic sensibilities. But I’m ready to prove you wrong about your wine tastes once and for all if you’re up for a thrashing, Angel.”

“Cheeky.”

Aziraphale shook his head but he didn’t manage to dislodge the smile.

Crowley gave Aziraphale’s hand a squeeze before he slipped into the kitchen to claim his ill gotten gains and a couple of glasses. Aziraphale let him pour, though he always started with too much and never let it breathe long enough.

“Right. What should we drink to?”

Aziraphale rolled the stem of the glass in his fingers as he thought. Unbearably, the first thing that popped into his head was “Best Friends”—but just thinking it made his cheeks flush and he thought he’d mortified himself quite enough for one evening.

“To your rose, I think.” He finally said.

Aziraphale held up his glass and turned back towards the bush. It was framed perfectly in the window, soft golden light of the fading sun setting the pink petals alight with brilliant color.

Crowley looked surprised at the angel’s answer, signature smirk momentarily struck from his face.

“Oh! It really is beautiful Crowley.” Aziraphale said.

“Y-yeah...”

Crowley looked away hurriedly as Aziraphale turned back to him. The angel wasn’t wrong. It was quite a fitting last hurrah for an old friend. He held up his glass to Aziraphale’s, smiling.

“To an old friend.”

“An old friend.” The angel replied softly.

As it turned out, it was quite a good vintage. Though Crowley was right, it had tasted better in the 40s. Apparently he had a point about improved vineyard technology— or maybe they just had a bigger sample size now. Either way they ended the night in a stalemate, as they always did when discussing their tastes. They also ended the night on the floor, which wasn’t too unusual for them either.

—

About a month later Crowley was just putting the finishing touches on a particularly juicy post he was working on to rile up the Flat Earthers when he heard a familiar knock at the door and felt a familiar angelic aura brush up against his senses. He tried not to dwell on the visceral feeling of pleasure that bloomed in his chest and chalked it up to a bad egg sandwich.

Aziraphale didn’t often just drop by unannounced. Crowley had long since told him to make himself at home in the flat,but the angel seemed uncomfortable just coming around without at least a phone call of warning.

The angel had also been conspicuously absent for the past month. He hadn’t been answering the phone at the shop and it had been closed every time Crowley had happened by.

(“Happening by”in the way that you “happen by” exactly the place you were going in the first place, of course.)

It wasn’t a big deal. They both had their own lives, they weren’t obligated to tell each other every little thing they were doing. Crowley took time off from his projects to keep their standing dinners on Thursday nights but if the angel had to cancel for a couple weeks in a row it was really no scales off Crowley’s tail. He had plenty to do.

Crowley pulled open the door and tried not to smile stupidly down at his friend. He wasn’t very successful.

“Long time no see Angel.”

“Crowley!”

He stepped aside so Aziraphale could come in. He tried not to dwell on the fact that the angel’s smile dropped the bottom out of his stomach.

Really. As if he hadn’t been perfectly content on his own the past month. He’d started at least 10 new conspiracy theories on the internet and one of them went so viral it’d been on the news yesterday.

He had plenty to do without Aziraphale hanging around.

“I’m sorry I’ve missed our past two dinners.” The angel pulled off his outer coat and held it like he always did before Crowley took it and hung it up in the closet. “I got a bit involved in some research that took me to Paris for a bit.”

Crowley shrugged, hands in his pockets. “No big deal. Not like I need to eat.” He said.

Crowley stepped past Aziraphale and sprawled out onto the chaise.

“What was so interesting it took you all the way to Paris?” He hated how keen he sounded. But curiosity was one of his biggest weaknesses. Or maybe that was Aziraphale.

“Well... I hope this wasn’t too forward of me.” The angel shuffled where he stood, not looking at Crowley.

That caught Crowley’s already piqued attention. The demon un-sprawled on the couch, sitting up to level a conspiratorial look at the angel through his dark lenses. He always liked when Aziraphale strayed into not-strictly-angelic territory— though what constituted as “forward” for Aziraphale was probably anything but.

“I um... well. I suppose I’ve brought you a present.”

Of all the ideas racing through Crowley’s head, that hadn’t been one of them. He looked the angel up and down. It didn’t look like he had anything on him.

“Erm— here.” Aziraphale draped his coat over the back of the chaise and sat down, his knees brushing up against Crowley’s.

“Alright now, close your eyes.”

Crowley did not close his eyes but he did roll them.

“Really, Angel?”

“Oh just do it Crowley! It’ll be fun.” His face fell for a moment. “Or you won’t like it and I’ll take you out to dinner instead. My treat.”

“Just hurry up and do it then! You’re already ruining it, fannying around like—“

“Alright alright!” Aziraphale took Crowley’s hands and held them up. “No need to get snippy.”

“Snippy?” Crowley opened one eye to level a glare at the angel. “I’m not snippy— I don’t do snippy!”

“Close your eyes!” Aziraphale tried to look severe but he kept laughing and ruining the effect.

Crowley grumbled but did as he was told. He tried not to notice how soft and warm Aziraphale’s hands were as the angel pressed his palms to the back of Crowley’s hands.

Suddenly there was a pressure and a weight magicked between them. He’d have dropped it if it wasn’t for the angel holding him in place.

“Alright, you can open your eyes now dear.”

Crowley meant to open then and give Aziraphale a proper unamused glare for all the hullabaloo, but he didn’t make it that far.

In his hands was a medium sized rose bush, in full bloom, with more on the way. Delicate coral blossoms curved up and around each other, a riot of soft pinks and oranges. Crowley turned the plant slowly in his hands. It wasn’t particularly well manicured, and it had been repotted very recently, and rather sloppily, the demon noticed.

“Angel...?”

“It’s not exactly the same as the one you lost.” Aziraphale was looking down at the plant a little sadly. “But I traced the planting records as best I could, and the gardeners there keep very good track of their varieties. A point of pride it seems.”

The angel traced a soft petal of one of the blooms with his index finger, still not looking at Crowley.

“So this isn’t exactly the same, but it is a direct descendant of the cultivar you had.” He finally looked back up at Crowley, his smile a little sheepish.

“This... this is where you’ve been for the past few weeks?” Crowley finally said.

“Err, yes. Well—“ Aziraphale sat back, suddenly too close to Crowley for comfort. “I remembered I had some old botanical journals at the shop and then I sort of... well it was a bit of a rabbit hole actually.”

“Angel...” Crowley’s chest was trying to clench words out of him but his tongue was having trouble figuring out which ones to use. “I’m, it’s... Er—“

Crowley’s fingers caught on the edge of a white plaque that was hanging over the edge of the pot and he looked down. He turned the card up so he could see it.

It read: “Rosa Wekdoofat, commonly called ‘Anna’s Promise’, is a hardy, fragrant rose who’s ancestry is traced back to cultivars from this very garden.” (But in French, obviously.)

Crowley started at the plaque for a moment and then glanced up at Aziraphale.

“So... you traced this rose all the way back to Paris.” He said.

The angel nodded sheepishly. Shrugging a little bit like he couldn’t help himself, but smiling in that small way Crowley recognized after 6000 years as self satisfaction.

“And then you, what— kindly asked for a pot of your own?”

Aziraphale visibly paled and looked away, mouth opening and closing before he stuttered something noncommittal.

“Angel—“ Crowley said, his voice insistent.

“Well yes. Basically.” The angel huffed in response.

“Basically?”

“Basically I did just ask nicely, and basically I did just end up with a pot of my own— so yes.”

Aziraphale still wasn’t looking at him, and Crowley was distinctly reminded of the first time they met in the garden all those years ago.

“You ‘just ended up with’ a hundred year old cultivar from a privately owned garden in the heart of Paris?”

“Alright!” The angel wailed. “Alright. I may have... sort of liberated it, more than asked for it.” Aziraphale turned back to him in a rush. “Not that I didn’t ask! I did ask, very nicely.” Aziraphale fussed with the edge of his sleeve, distress peaking in his voice.

Crowley felt a familiar sort of pleasant bloom rush through his chest as Aziraphale avoided his eyes.

“I asked, I offered them whatever they’d like— and you should have seen it, there were at least 20 different plants, one less really wasn’t going to make a difference.” Aziraphale huffed again at the memory as old irritation bubbled up. “They were quite rude about it really. It wasn’t as if I was asking for the Mona Lisa.”

He hazarded a quick glance at Crowley, looking a bit like he was expecting a reprimand.

“Apparently gardeners in Paris really do take pride in their work.” He said, sighing. “I tried to bribe the night groundskeeper but he actually chased me off— tried to hit me with a rake!”

Crowley’s chest felt like it was going to squeeze the life out of him with an overwhelming sense of fondness. He put a hand over his mouth to try and stifle the laugh that was threatening too.

“Don’t laugh!” The angel finally turned back toward Crowley, indignation mixing into the distress in his expression.

Crowley couldn’t keep it back with Aziraphale looking at him like that, and he dissolved into a sharp cascade of giggles.

“Crowley! It’s not funny!” Aziraphale whined. “I almost didn’t make it out— I barely got the plant in the pot before he found me again. I had to leg it trough the whole garden before I finally lost in him the hedge maze.”

Crowley gasped, trying hard to bite back his laughter but the image of Aziraphale running through a hedge maze to escape a French gardener in the middle of the night was too much.

“You wouldn’t be laughing if it had been you he was brandishing those shears at!” Aziraphale huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at the demon in earnest now.

Crowley just laughed harder.

“So you— pfft— you lost him in the hedge maze?” Crowley tried to take a deep breath and stop the giggles welling up in his throat.

Aziraphale looked away again.

“You didn’t lose him in the hedge maze?” Crowley was trembling with the effort to not burst out laughing again.

“He...fffn nmbd...” Aziraphale mumbled, still turned away.

“What was that?”

“He was waiting for me at the end!” Aziraphale keened, slumping back against the chaise lounge.

Crowley burst out laughing again, he couldn’t help it.

“You’re laughing, but it was like a horror movie! He kept popping out with his rake, screaming at me in French!” Aziraphale wrung his hands, helpless against Crowley’s barrage of laughter.

“No ssstop!” Crowley gasped.

“I had to miracle my way out the back in the end.” The angel said miserably. Crowley was crying he was laughing so hard.

“Oh Angel...” he choked out.

“I spent an hour in that bloody maze.”

Crowley actually snorted.

“It was like the Revolution all over again.” Aziraphale rubbed his hand across his forehead, starting to feel resigned to the fact that his trips over the channel always seemed to end up in disaster.

Crowley started to get himself back under control, his laughter finally dying down into little giggles and finally just leaving him breathless and grinning like a madman.

“Oh Angel.” He said. Leaning back onto the chaise to match Aziraphale. “I do love it when you try something on my side of the fence.

“Yes well.” Aziraphale huffed. “Plants are plants. It’s ridiculous they wouldn’t even give me a cutting.” He sighed, leaning his head back. “As if they could restrict nature. Humans are absurd sometimes.”

Crowley leaned his head against his hand, his elbow perched on the back of the chaise. The purloined rose bush sat delicately in his lap, the messy state of its roots shoved into the pot suddenly making sense.

“You’re absurd, Angel.” He said. The overwhelming fondness still compressing his chest.

Aziraphale gave him a sidelong glance that was not amused. “If you don’t like it I can take it back.” He stopped, cringing at the idea of facing down that rake again. “Maybe I’ll send it by courier...”

“Don’t you dare.” Crowley was smiling his usual taunting grin. “This rose bush represents you first, well second— well maybe...hmm.” Crowley stopped for a moment, trying to count. “Well it’s one of your many crimes at this point and I—“

“My what!?” Aziraphale interrupted him indignantly.

“Your crimes, Angel. You’re really starting to rack them up.” Crowley stood up languidly, holding the rose bush up like a prize.

“I’m not—I don’t!” Aziraphale stuttered in horror. “No one can own a rose variety!” He leaned around the couch as Crowley sauntered over to his plant room.

“They most certainly can, Angel.” Crowley set the new bush up in the windowsill, turning it so the new buds would get the most sun. He’d replant it tomorrow.

“Well they shouldn’t.” Aziraphale grumbled.

Crowley smiled. A smile of pure, unabashed affection. He tried to smooth it from his mouth as he turned back to face the angel, but he wasn’t very successful.

“Well just because I agree with you doesn’t mean it’s not a crime.” Crowley stepped back around the couch, looking down at Aziraphale, who looked a bit miserable. “Actually that might make it worse. Doing things a demon approves of isn’t very angelic of you.”

Aziraphale let out a despondent sigh, slumping down a bit where he sat.

“I’ve really let myself go this past year, haven’t I?” He smiled a sad little smile up at Crowley that made the demon’s heart seize up in all kinds of ways.

“Nahhh come on.” Crowley held out his hand towards the angel. “I’m teasing you Aziraphale. You’ll always be an insufferable goody two shoes.”

Aziraphale perked up a little at that. “Do you really think so?” He reached up and took Crowley’s hand, letting the demon pull him to his feet easily.

Crowley scoffed. “You stole a plant from a garden because you thought it would make me feel better. Hardly the malevolent, greedy type of stealing I’m a fan of.”

Crowley didn’t let go of Aziraphale’s hand, through the angel was up and standing now and certainly didn’t need the support. Neither of them moved.

“That’s very nice of you to say, Crowley.” Aziraphale glanced up at the demon furtively, his cheeks pink. Crowley looked away.

“Yeah well.” He cleared his throat. “I guess we’re both off form these days.”

They stood like that for another minute, index fingers still gently looped together, both somehow unwilling to give up the small connection. After a moment Aziraphale looked back at Crowley.

“You do... like it then.” His voice was soft, and a little hesitant. “The rose I mean.”

Crowley blinked. He realized he hadn’t actually thanked Aziraphale, not properly. He’d gotten so caught up in the story he’d forgotten why Aziraphale had even been in that garden in the first place. He felt his cheeks heat and he had to resist the urge to step back and hide it somehow.

“Mmmn.” He said, or at least that’s the sound he made instead of forging real words.

“Hh-Yes. Yeah.” He cleared his throat again.

Crowley trailed his fingers up Aziraphale’s arm, just barely touching him. The angel was still looking up at him, clear blue eyes so open and unguarded. Crowley’s stomach did another uncomfortable flip. Bloody egg sandwich again.

“I...” He stopped and leaned forward, tilting his head so that he was almost right by the angel’s ear. His hand coming up to his friend’s shoulder. He pulled Aziraphale into him, almost like a hug, but not quite. Maybe the awkward, doesn’t-speak-at-parties and gives-you-weird-looks-at-the-shops second cousin of the hug.

“Thank you, Aziraphale.” Crowley whispered it to the angel like he was afraid anyone else would hear them.

Aziraphale brought his own hand up and squeezed Crowley’s arm. The demon stepped back hurriedly, breaking the contact after just a moment. The angel was beaming up at him like the bloody goddamn sun itself.

“You’re very welcome Crowley.” He said, voice as warm as his smile.

Crowley shook off the comforting, glowing sort of feeling radiating through him from where Aziraphale had held his arm.

“Yeah yeah— don’t go broadcasting it about.” He grumbled, stepping around Aziraphale to retrieve the angel’s coat from the back of the chaise lounge. He held it up for his friend.

“Come on Angel. We’re going to miss happy hour at the Mere if we dawdle around here anymore.”

Aziraphale blinked at him for a moment, then smiled again and slipped his arms into the old tan sleeves.

“Are we celebrating?”

“Hmm?”

“You only like the Mere for special occasions.”

“I don’t.”

“You do, though.”

Aziraphale pulled the jacket around him and fussed with the collar a little bit. Crowley snagged his keys from his desk, calling out behind him as he switched rooms.

“I do not. We just haven’t been there for a while.”

“Whatever you say dear.”

Aziraphale smiled up at Crowley knowingly as the demon held the door open for him.

“Don’t ‘whatever you say dear’ me, Angel.” He growled as he pulled the door shut behind them. “The Mere is nothing special.”

“Whatever you say, Crowley...”

Their argument— if the blatantly affectionate banter they indulged in could even be called that, continued as they made their way to the Bently; and through their short drive (though Aziraphale would happily have had it be a long one, or even a medium one) and all the way through their meal and into the late hours of the night.

It was a lovely evening, even by their standards. Though Crowley did burst into laughter again when they took a little stroll through the rose garden in the park. Aziraphale tried to stay severe, but in the lovely blue light of the moon, tucked into Crowley’s side he found it harder and harder to mind.

It had been worth it in the end, after all.


End file.
